Samsung v’s Apple or Apple v’s Samsung

Unless you have been living under a rock or you come from community that spurns modernity and all its trappings, you will be aware of one of the longest and biggest legal battles in recent times.

A legal battle so furious and hard fought it has spanned over ten years and nine different countries and their respective legal systems. In fact its not really a battle more like a war, a war that has had skirmish after skirmish and battle after battle and with no sign of letting up.

As the title suggests it is of course the on going “smart phone patent wars” which had its origin way back in 2007 but has mainly centred on two world heavy weights of the smart phone and tablet manufacturing companies, Apple inc and Samsung Electronics co.

It’s like a web of suing counter-suing and litigation after litigation. In 2007 Apple inc filed four design patents and a further massive 193 screen shots iPhone graphics. It was from this and various trademarks and intellectual properties that they sued Samsung in 2011 in the U.S. Their argument was that Samsung had infringed several of its designs, user interfaces and style, also some of its trademarks. In 2001 Samsung then counter sued Apple by filing federal complaints in courts in South Korea, Germany and Japan. Later that year Samsung filed complaints in the U.K, and in the U.S including the International Trade Commission (ITC) in Washington D.C. All in the space of a few months. The fight then spread to the courts of France, Italy Netherlands and Australia.

And so the fight went on and on, in 2012 a U.S court awarded Apple an absolute staggering $1.049 billion in damages, in regard to Apple iPhone design and functions. That wasn’t the end of the matter though, as in the following months and years the two companies continued to battle and wage war against each other, including the disputes of Samsung’s nexus tablet and Apples iPad which included a temporary ban on Samsung selling the product in the U.S.

By 2012 the two giants were involved in over 50 lawsuits around the world and claiming billions of dollars in damages from both sides. Apple rulings in the U.S however Samsung won claims in the U.K, Japan and South Korea that Apple had violated Samsung patents.

The battle raged on and in 2016 the Supreme Court of the United States reversed a $400 million payout to Apple from Samsung and referred the case to the Federal Circuit court.

The battle continues not just in the courts but also on the shelves of shops and the pockets of people who decide whether they are Android users or IOS Apple fans, two giants battling out, as it stands today Apple is far out stripping Samsung in the financial markets, but the war is not over and both sides stand defiant in the world of mobile technology, watch this space.